h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yesterday I finished the first draft of the 'Occasionally True and Mostly Ignoble History'. It is very rough and will need another few iterations before it gets anywhere near a Christmas present.

It was fun, as turning a bare tree into a proper story, adding in the social history, family tales, and wild surmises can only be. It was also 'fun' in that turning a list of names and dates into a narrative does throw up the odd error here and there, and back to here again. Some of them do highlight the problems that most people find when engaged in this game.

An example: one branch of the tree was helpfully supplied by another family. One of many advantages of subscribing to a genealogy site is that your records will link with other people's and sometimes you can get chunks of ancestors from another's research.

Be warned, however, that some of this data may be unproven, sometimes downright incorrect. The branch I was looking at just didn't add up. There were a pair of sons with the same name and a pair of daughters with the same name. It isn't that rare to find this situation. Families often named first son Thomas James and the next one James Thomas, and both go on to be known as Tommy or Jimmy.

Sometimes you will find two children with exactly the same name, Thomas born 1849 and Thomas born 1854. In these cases is it certain that the first Thomas has died prior to the birth of the second. Naming a child after a previously deceased child, was a Victorian tradition, to maintain the memory of the first.

It can cause some initial confusion when reading the ten year census data, Thomas appears in 1851 aged 2 years and reappears ten years later aged only 7 years. The problem I had with my family branch was that the two boys, the first called Robert Howard, the second just Robert, were born in 1868 and 1869 respectively. Oddly they were both christened on the same day in Jan 1869. Robert Howard lived 60+ years. How odd for a family to wait almost a year before christening both sons, and even odder that they gave them both the same forename. Were they trying to save money, a double christening with the same name? Perhaps the church was offering the first Baptise One Get One Free offer, maybe that's the origin of the acronym BOGOF.

When faced with these problems I pop next door and borrow my friend Occam's razor. The simplest solution that fits is more likely to be the right one. They weren't christened on the same day. When copying the records, the transcriber's eye had jumped from one line to another, attracted by the forename Robert, and incorrectly assigned the date to both of them. If we ignore the christening records, we still have a problem, as Robert Howard born in 1868 was still alive in 1869 when the next Robert was born. It can only be that the two are in the wrong order, or that the date of death for Robert Howard refers to Robert. Whichever it is, it must be that one of them was born in 1868 and died soon after, and certainly before the second was born in 1869.

Turning to the two girls, Martha Ann born January 1860 and the other just Martha, born in the same quarter of 1860. Twins? Who gives twins the same name, it's complicated enough as it is. Separate births? Not a maximum of three months apart. Martha Ann sadly died 15 months later and was buried in May 1861. The census data of 1881 suggests that plain Martha was actually born in 1861, and common sense suggests a date after May of that year.

Well that's the records rationalised, but it does raise a doubt about all that data. Which means any member of that branch who has not been confirmed by additional evidence has to go on the re check list. I see a lot more delving ahead. By the time I finish, the tree may look different. My old chestnut may look more like a complete ash.

It sounds like hard work, but must be really satisfying. It's certainly interesting!

Deb

[Amy P]